


I Think We Ought (to Live Happily Ever After)

by freyjaschariot



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Family, Married Life, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjaschariot/pseuds/freyjaschariot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver and Thea have decided to sell the manor but before they do Oliver wants to show his new wife where he grew up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think We Ought (to Live Happily Ever After)

They go out to Queen Manor on the first Saturday in June. It’s still early, the shadows long, dew still clinging to the grass.

On the ride over, Felicity thumbs silently at her wedding ring. They’ve only been married a few weeks and she’s still getting used to the weight of it on her finger, stacked atop the simple silver engagement band Oliver made when he decided to propose for the second time. 

The porsche crests a hill and suddenly the mansion rears into view, stone turrets thrusting toward the pale blue sky. 

Oliver’s heart clenches tightly his chest.

He hasn’t been back since Moira died. The manor was always his mother’s domain and some part of him, the part of the ocean where light never reaches, still believes she holds court there. As long as he stayed away, he could indulge this fantasy. But it’s been years now and recently the thought of the house falling into dereliction because he can’t stand to face the truth has begun to gnaw at him.

A month ago, he took Thea to dinner and they talked about the house, discovered that neither of them had any desire to live there ever again. They’re going to sell it and donate the proceeds to a scholarship program for kids from the Glades.

Last week, a small army of cleaners trouped out to the manor and scourged it of three years of dust. It’s going on the market on Monday. Before it does Oliver wants to show Felicity where he grew up. He wants to show her the hidden staircase he used to sneak down to the kitchen late at night and he wants to take her out to the little brook behind the house that turned into a rollicking stream every time it rained. 

This is what Oliver tells Felicity the night before they make the trip. They’re sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace eating chicken cacciatore and sipping wine. Shadow and light flicker across Oliver’s face and Felicity knows that, while all of this is true, what he also wants is her beside him when he says goodbye. 

Felicity’s eyes flick to Oliver as the mansion comes into sight. She sees the shadow dart across his features, his knuckles whitening against the steering wheel. She reaches over and squeezes his knee. 

His grip loosens a fraction, the cloud lifting.

They park in the roundabout in front of the house. The slam of car doors shatters the morning stillness. The air is cool and sweet with the scent of flowers bursting, unbridled, from their beds. 

Felicity has only been here at night before. In the light of day, the castle- and she doesn’t care what Oliver says, it is a castle- takes her breath away. The walls seem to breathe, expanding before her eyes. Thick ivy and vines creep up the stone and Felicity’s knows it’s crazy but they seem to writhe.

Oliver’s voice breaks through her reverie. “Ready?”

Felicity tears her gaze free. Oliver stands by the driver side door, hand outstretched. He’s beautiful in the morning, this husband of hers. He’s beautiful in the afternoon, too, and at night with the stars raining down around his head. But something about the way the morning light plays across his face, softens it, that makes Felicity’s chest ache in the very best way. Maybe it’s just the realization that he’s alive another day, hers for another day.

Felicity glides around the car and slips her hands into his.

“Ready,” she says.

 

The heavy front door protests loudly as Oliver pushes it open.

It’s dim in the foyer. Felicity feels like she just walked into a Victorian hunting lodge. Thin light trickles through the small paned windows, glistening across the wood paneled walls. A heavy chandelier droops from the high ceiling and the carpet is so thick Felicity feels herself sink with every step. Jane Eyre could have lived here, she thinks. Heathcliffe and Cathy.

_Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same._

Oliver gives her the official tour. They take their time, wandering down long hallways hung with gilt framed paintings, through arched doorways straight out of a gothic monastery. 

Every so often Oliver stops to point out significant landmarks.

“Thea fell down these stairs when she was five. Six stitches.”

“There used to be a vase here. Tommy and I broke it playing catch in the house when we were nine.”

“This is where we put the Christmas tree. 15 feet tall and fat as Santa, every time. Thea used to cry every January when men came to take them away.”

Just outside the kitchen, Oliver stops abruptly in front of a small painting in a simple gold frame. It’s the most unassuming piece in the whole house. A still life. A few pears, an apple, and chipped white jug on a blue cloth.

“My mom painted that,” Oliver says.

Felicity’s eyebrows touch her hairline. “Moira painted?” For what feels like the hundredth time, her impression of Moira Queen collapses in on itself and a new one rises up in it’s place.

“For a year or two. Every time my dad had an affair she picked up a new hobby. Her painting phase coincided almost perfectly with his affair with Louise de Berg. After that there was April Colgate and macrame. Then Shannon Delevingne and poetry. When dad started seeing Isabelle she picked up metalworking. I think she was making weapons to skewer them both with.”

There’s not a jot of bitterness in his voice. Felicity steps closer to Oliver so they’re hip to hip, at least as much as two people of their disparate height can be. Warmth from his leg leaches into hers. They both stare at the painting, a comfortable silence stretching between them.

“She was really good,” Felicity says after a moment, and she means it.

He nods, smiling. “I think she surprised herself with how good she was. And how much she liked it. Who knows...maybe in another life...” Oliver shrugs and takes Felicity’s hand again. “There’s something else I want to show you.”

He takes her to his bedroom, the one he grew up in. It’s a cavernous space bigger than the entire apartment Felicity shared with her mother in Vegas. Oliver leans against the doorframe while Felicity floats through the room, skimming her fingers across the remnants of her husband’s childhood.

There’s the baseball Oliver caught at his first Rockets game, and the cracked leather glove he caught it with. There’s a miniature reproduction of the English galleon Revenge, it’s small white sails ballooned by an imaginary wind. Felicity stops at Oliver’s desk, a massive, gleaming thing, and picks up a leather bound copy of The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure that’s pressed between two onyx bookends. The spine crackles as it falls open in her hands, the smell of musty paper bursting forth.

An inscription is scrawled on the inside cover. 

_To my son on his 11th birthday._

_Every day I am more proud to be your father._

_Love always,_

_Dad._

Warm hands slide around Felicity’s waist. She leans back into Oliver and knows he’s reading the inscription by the way his arms tighten around her.

“He really loved you,” she says softly.

It’s a moment before Oliver responds. “I used to wonder about that. How he could do all the things he did and still be the father I knew. The one who took me fishing and braided Thea’s hair. The one who taught Tommy and me to ride bikes.”

Felicity turns in his arms, slides her palms up his chest. “And now?”

The corner of Oliver’s mouth quirks as his thumbs brush across Felicity’s cheekbones.“Now I know that trying to apply logic to love it is a fool’s endeavor.”

Felicity smiles, tilting her head at him. “When did you get so wise?”

“Oh, I’m not. That’s what my fortune cookie said last time we got takeout.” Oliver laughs at her surprised expression and lets go of her waist. “Come on, let’s go outside.”

 

They leave the house for the sprawling grounds behind. Neglect has turned them more wild and, in a way, even more beautiful. It’s a lush green fantasy, well fed by the rainy spring.

Oliver leads Felicity beneath stone arches tangled with lavender and over a creaky wooden bridge that spans a bubbling stream. The sun is high in the sky now and sunshine warms their faces, hands.

Felicity feels a bit as though she’s fallen down a rabbit hole into some alternate universe. If that’s so, she’s not nearly as perturbed as she ought to be.

Oliver falls silent as they walk and Felicity wonders if he’s regretting the decision to sell all this. Not necessarily the things, but the memories that go along with them.

She stops suddenly beside a large rose bush and takes his hands.

Oliver blinks at her. “What is it?”

Felicity squeezes his fingers. “I just want to make sure this is really what you want. Selling all this, I mean. This place was home for you for a long time and if you wanted to hold on to that I wouldn’t blame you, no one would...” she trails off because he’s shaking his head.

“This was my home. And maybe I’ll miss it. But the person who lived here, that hasn’t been me for a long time. And the person I am today-” Oliver plucks a small bud off the rose bush and tucks it gently behind Felicity’s ear “-he already has a home.”

A bird sings from a willow tree nearby, a happy, carrying tune. A soft breeze dances Felicity’s hair around her face. She pushes it away as she sidles closer to him, tugs on the front of his shirt. “Did you get that from a fortune cookie, too?” she teases.

“No," he says, eyes crinkling up at the edges. "That one I got from you.” 

For a moment they just stand there gazing at each other like two lovesick goons as sunshine tumbles down on their shoulders.

Oliver turns, taking one last sweeping gaze of the grounds, before his eyes fall back to Felicity. “I’m think I’m ready to go. You with me?”

"Always,” she says. 

They take the long way back up to the house.


End file.
